Tumor Mutational Burden as a Predictor of Survival with Durvalumab and/or Tremelimumab Treatment in Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Purpose: Biomarkers that predict response to immune check-point inhibitors (ICI) in recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M HNSCC) are needed. This retro-spective study assessed tumor mutational burden (TMB) and out-comes in the phase II HAWK and CONDOR and phase III EAGLE studies of durvalumab with or without tremelimumab in platinum -resistant R/M HNSCC.Patients and Methods: Tumor samples from HAWK/CONDOR (N = 153) and blood samples from EAGLE (N = 247) were analyzed for TMB. Associations with survival were evaluated for tissue TMB (tTMB) at cutoffs from 10 to 20 mutations/megabase (mut/Mb) and for blood plasma TMB (bTMB) at cutoffs from 8 to 24 mut/Mb.Results: In HAWK/CONDOR, overall survival (OS) with dur-valumab with or without tremelimumab was longer for high versus low tTMB: statistically significant differences were observed with durvalumab plus tremelimumab at tTMB = 10 mut/Mb [HR, 0.52 (95% confidence interval, CI, 0.28-0.98)] and tTMB = 12 mut/Mb [HR, 0.46 (95% CI, 0.24-0.86)]. In EAGLE, a significant OS benefit versus chemotherapy was observed with durvalumab and durva-lumab plus tremelimumab at bTMB=16 mut/Mb [HR, 0.39 (95% CI, 0.20-0.76) and 0.38 (95% CI, 0.19-0.78), respectively] but not bTMB < 16 mut/Mb [HR, 0.92 (0.61-1.37) and 0.92 (95% CI, 0.62-1.36), respectively]. A significant progression-free survival benefit was also observed in the ICI arms versus chemotherapy at bTMB = 16 mut/Mb.Conclusions: Findings support TMB as a biomarker for predicting survival in patients with platinum-resistant R/M HNSCC treated with ICIs. The analysis of EAGLE demonstrated that bTMB was predictive of survival with ICI treatment versus chemotherapy in a large, randomized controlled study population.

Automated summary

This study found that tumor mutational burden can serve as a biomarker to predict survival in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma treated with immune check-point inhibitors. By analyzing tumor samples and blood samples from clinical trials, it was found that high mutational burden is associated with longer survival.